Re: [cobalt-users] RaQ3 vs. Raq4 OS vs. slackware vs. $(other)

[Bruce Timberlake <bruce@xxxxxxxxxx>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

> 1. I've seen some mention of installing the Raq4 OS on RaQ3
> hardware. Is there a difference in the OS compelling enough to want
> to do that? If it's a better OS, why wouldn't I want to do that?

I recommend it.  Slightly newer versions of all the main apps, more 
recently EOL'd (so support and patches from Sun should continue 
longer).  Built-in PHP and ASP support.

> 2. What about slackware on cobalt? I'd lose the gui, but I can deal
> with that. Is slackware a leaner or more organized or more stable
> distro?

Hard to say.  Most generic Linux distros are fairly similar when you 
only install the needed-for-a-server components (not window managers, 
installers, etc).  Depends mostly on what you prefer.

> 3. If I'm willing to lose the gui and want a leaner, cleaner os,
> should I just scrap the cobalt and go with a generic FreeBSD box?

FreeBSD is a very stable server OS.  The third-party app support for 
it is not as prevalent as for Linux, but if all you're doing are the 
basics, it's definitely more than adequate.

You can also lose the GUI and manually install the latest and greatest 
apps on the Cobalt hardware as well - I did just that on a MIPS-based 
RaQ 2, and am now running Apache 1.3.27 with PHP 4.3.1, and MySQL 
3.23.55 with no issues. If you already own the box, no sense in just 
throwing it away (although if you really want to, please let me know 
and I'll take it off your hands for you!) - it's still a very capable 
machine.

> 4. Many of the security tips on the cobalt have instructions on
> shutting down IMAP? I'm curious about the reasoning behind this.

I'm not sure I've seen those recommendations... could be that the 
default IMAP server is flawed; I know solarspeed.net has a free IMAP 
server upgrade PKG.

- -- 
Bruce Timberlake

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE+Z7TQvLA2hUZ9kgwRAsDhAJ4kxNUN/BlxEhMbJUbT0K1c+DlgEgCeN6ZH
5e2TVq6ERps6Vo3iRgHO8M4=
=Rw5U
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----